SACRAMENTO — As far as Nuggets coach Michael Malone was concerned, a poor first half is what doomed his team to its fate — a loss at Sacramento.

“They had 70 points, they shot 60 percent from the field and they were 77 percent from three,” Malone said.

Said forward Danilo Gallinari: “You’re not winning the game when they score 70 points or more in the first two quarters. You’ve got to play better defense.”

Remarkably, the Nuggets were never down by more than 16 points in the game even with Sacramento getting any shot it wanted and generally making them. But it was more than they could overcome. The first half was marred by the Nuggets’ inability to stay connected to 3-point shooters, although one of them was Kings point guard Rajon Rondo, a player teams are more-than-willing to give jump shots to.

He just made them against the Nuggets. Rondo was 4-of-5 from the 3-point line in that first half. The scouting report says to keep him out of the lane, first and foremost, so that was on the Nuggets’ minds. But he took advantage of the space given to him.

“Give him credit,” Malone said. “He stepped in and made those shots.”

While the Nuggets did tighten up the defense in the second half, they could not make enough plays to get over the hump. A career-best effort from Joffrey Lauvergne was wasted in the process.

Lauvergne’s career high 22 points came on 10-of-14 shooting. He made shots from the rim to the 3-point line.

“I thought he was terrific,” Malone said. “DeMarcus (Cousins) got all of our bigs in foul trouble, so we went to Joffrey. He was able to do a solid job on DeMarcus – no one can guard him one-on-one. But for him to score, for him to space the floor, I thought in that first half he and D.J. Augustin had a great connection. Joffrey did a heck of a job.”

Lauvergne scarfed down two In-and-Out burgers in the post-game locker room and shrugged off his performance.

“I got some easy baskets at the beginning of the game,” Lauvergne said.

Asked why he and Augustin had such good chemistry, Lauvergne said, “because he is good in the pick-and-roll. He gave me four or five baskets in six minutes just on pick-and-roll. So when you start the game like this, everything is easier after.”

But nothing was easy for the Nuggets in general.

“They came out and played with a sense of urgency,” Malone said. “They’re trying to make the playoffs like we are, like Utah, like Portland is. And it showed. We did not respond until the second half, and that is too late.”

Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com

Looking for me to make takes you can include in your article or in future articles, Chris? Hilarious. Wow, an actual game take descended into the underground in real time. My take on this particular game? The Nuggets stunk. Game wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicated. Karl got another win in his quest to move up the career lists. Malone got another dose of reality re this roster.

Whats is most annoying is that Nuggets didn’t play that bad most of the game but they made utterly stupid turnovers at key moments, referees were atrocious all game and in addition Mudiay again forced his shoots 4-14 this night (again team most FGA), thats big problem, he is not first or the last player that struggle shooting, problem is that he is taking so many of them, for every game Nuggets won when he has good night they will lose 3 when he doesn’t, thats half dozen more points team have to top every night in order to win, that would be difficult to achieve even for stronger, more experienced teams…

Nuggets didn’t guard perimeter first half of the game and Kings went crazy 10-13 for three while Nuggets shoot 4-14 for three, thats made big difference, second half Kings made zero threes but Nuggets continued making stupid turnovers…

About time for another fresh shot here in the underground? Since Dempsey wrote that silly article about Karl the Nuggets have played like crap. Oh, and got their butts handed to them by Karl for the second time in a week. The Nuggets have also fallen out of any chance to make the playoffs as an 8th seed–giving them the opportunity to get destroyed in the first round by the Warriors–so the interesting discussion is the far more important race to the bottom and better lottery possibilities. Any chance future Post hoops articles begin reporting about the real team and future?

Lots of silly stuff published by Post writers re the Nuggets recently. Glad to see Kizla’s typical mash up of logical fallacies, incoherence and unprofessional personal hostility toward Karl get trashed by readers here. But I won’t waste my time on his take other than to laugh out loud at his new ‘spin’ about Karl’s firing. Old spin? Confident young executive Josh groomed by brilliant daddy pulls the trigger on Karl and generations of accepted wisdom here in Denver to go all Indiana and Memphis on us to bring in a bright new day. New spin? Brilliant hall of fame coach but bully Karl pushes young and inexperienced executive Josh so hard for a contract extension that young Josh, leading a dysfunctional front office similar to Sacramento’s current FO, reacts and sends Karl out of town on a rail. Hilarious. Anyway, no more time to waste on an idiot like Kizla that doesn’t get hoops and wastes everyone’s time here when he writes about it. Restrict him to Broncos’ jock strap stuff, please. Dempsey and Woody Paige should get an intelligent fan response to their recent stuff on the Nuggets. Since no one actually comments on their stuff outside the blog maybe time to have a discussion here?

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.